A meeting of the Syndicate of Mahatma Gandhi University held here on Saturday has decided to inquire into the alleged irregularities in the pay fixation of the staff of the self-financing institutions run by it.
The report submitted by the Syndicate subcommittee on legal affairs had found gross irregularities in the fixation of pay scales and also failure on the part of the university to bring such issues to the attention of the court as and when such issues came up for hearing.
The Syndicate decision comes in the wake of the incident on August 29 in which a Division Bench of Kerala High Court criticised Vice Chancellor Babu Sebastian, registrar M.R. Unni and finance officer Abraham Puthuman for not complying with its directive to pay remuneration due to teachers of self-financing institutions and various other colleges. The court had asked the three to stand in the court till that session ended.
The report also found that the advocate who appeared for the university had failed to inform the court that the university had complied with the court directive and had paid a lump sum amount of ₹5 lakh each since computation of the actual amount to each of the litigants would have taken more time.
Some of the important findings of the committee led by A. Jose, Syndicate member, are the following: Though the appointments, which were all made on contract were under a consolidated pay, the university had later decided to pay UGC and AICTE scales for the teachers. However, such decisions, made on individual cases, had not followed the rules and regulations to be followed.
Such actions were not only myopic but were often taken under external pressure, the report said. It also found that with regard to the legal cases related to self-financing institutions, those who represented the university in the court could not safeguard its interests.
It said the failure on the part of university authorities earlier had pushed the institution into a crisis which other universities have not faced so far. Against this backdrop, the reports has called for a comprehensive inquiry into the matters concerning the self-financing institutions and also to initiative corrective measures to overcome the present impasse.
